Such a video player device is known from document EP1158800. This document presents a device for playing video received from terrestrial TV, satellite TV, web TV including digital TV transmission, or video media such as cassette, CD and DVD. This device may thus be a set top box or a TV receiver or video recorder, DVD or any optical disc (BluRay . . . ) player. If the user of the device likes to watch a video with the audio track in a preferred language, a language menu can be provided on a display of the device. The language menu presents a list of several language options to the user of the device, each of the several language options representing audio translation data in a different language. The user can select a language option corresponding to the language preferred by the user from the language menu.
The device of the prior art thus proposes a language selection from a fixed list of languages among which the user has to choose.
This method is also used for video derived from optical discs: a list of languages is displayed on a screen, this screen being, for example, the screen of a TV linked to an optical disc reader device. This list belongs to a menu that is stored on the optical disc itself or that is determined by the player device itself. There is no way of modifying this list as it has been laid down on the optical disc or in the device.
Optical discs are published with many audio tracks and subtitles. This can make navigating through the list and switching between languages very tedious. Switching between audio tracks or subtitles by choosing previous and next commands in a list of as many as 20 languages is very tedious if the two languages the user is switching between are, for example, number 1 and 11 in the list. The list of languages may also include director's and actor's commentaries, and switching to these audio tracks and back to the original is a practical feature.
Thus, for example, DVD allows at most audio tracks in 8 languages, which can be switched between from a player menu or chosen from a menu authored on the optical disc, for example e.g. a disc-based menu. The choice to limit the number of audio track languages in DVD to 8 was made in part because of the problem with choosing from a large list in the player menu or in the disc-based menu.
A language feature provided in DVD player devices allows the user to configure the player with a default language so that by default the player will choose the menus in this language, i. e. the audio track in this language if available, or else the subtitle in this language. The manufacturer of the device may also configure this language feature during manufacture or just after according to the country where the player device is intended to be sold. With such a feature, when the user wants to change the language of the audio track and/or of the subtitles, the user has to return to the disc-based menus, which is time consuming and rather complicated.